


the last days of the sunset superstars

by Traincat



Category: Spider-Gwen (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Past Character Death, Past Peter Parker/Gwen Stacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 07:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13049778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traincat/pseuds/Traincat
Summary: Gwen falls into an alternate universe where three things are true: She’s dead. Mary Jane’s Spider-Woman. And Peter Parker’s in a band.





	the last days of the sunset superstars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gleesquid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gleesquid/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, Gleesquid!

_“This is the very spot where it happened. She fell… and, in a sense -- we all fell with her.”_

Harry Osborn, Spectacular Spider-Man #200

 

* * *

 

Gwen landed ass over teakettle in the middle of some other Manhattan’s streets, in the pouring rain. Thunder split the sky as she struggled to her stinging hands and knees. She threw herself out of the way, spider-sense buzzing, half a second later as a taxi sped by. Dirty water still hit her straight in the mask.

Just her luck, she’d landed in this universe’s Times Square, same as the old universe’s Times Square.

She staggered to her feet, looking around. It was evening, and everything was all lit up, billboards buzzing around her. She saw a billboard showcasing a woman standing with her back to the crowd, her red hair fanning out down a pale, bare back above the waistband of an incredibly well-fitting pair of jeans. The logo on the pocket read Van Dyne Denim, not that the logo was where Gwen looked first.

Someone tried to crowd in next to her, their phone held up for a selfie, and Gwen stumbled back, still disoriented.

“Ex _cuse_ me,” she said. “I’m not an actor in a costume, I am a _genuine_  dimension displaced…”

The word ‘superhero’ was on the tip of her tongue, but suddenly she couldn’t speak.

That was her father’s face on a huge screen in Times Square, staring down the crowd with his steel grey eyes. 

 _Dr. George Stacy_ , she read on the ticker tape. _Stacy Pharmaceuticals._

Gwen had wanted to be a scientist when she was a kid. She’d liked the subject in school, always wanting to learn more – how the world worked. How people worked. How she worked. It was one of the things she and Peter had in common, this yearning for things to make sense, and this whole big world that promised to explain it to them. She got in trouble in sixth grade for being that kid who reminded the teacher about homework. Peter had laughed at her for a week, as if she hadn’t beaten him to the punch.

Then Peter had done that terrible thing to himself, had used their beloved science to do it, and Gwen’s college acceptances had turned to confetti underneath her fingers. She hadn’t wanted them anymore. Let her have her dad’s disappointment, the nights spent sleeping on Glory’s couch, the apron that smelled like corn dogs. It was more than Peter would ever have, and more than she deserved.

Up on the screen, high above some other universe’s Times Square, footage was playing of her father speaking to a crowd, the sky lit stormy grey behind him. It felt like the world had stopped, but everyone else continued on with their business, jostling her as they ducked into stores and restaurants. Gwen stayed exactly where she was, planted like a tree.

“In memory of my daughter, Gwen,” George Stacy said, and it took Gwen a moment to get it, because she was his daughter, and she was standing right there. She’d reached up a hand as if she could touch him, before it hit her: different universe, different Gwen.

This universe’s Gwen was dead.

Well, she thought, a lump in her throat, what was one more notch in the gravestone?

Then she thought, _I’m sorry, Dad._

“Your daughter murdered the chief of police in cold blood!” someone in the crowd shouted. Gwen watched this version of her father steel himself just like her dad did; the tightening of his hands on the podium, knuckles gone white, the brief downward glance, the swallow. Then he regained his composure, like he’d never been about to lose it at all. All his righteous anger, swallowed down deep.

“My daughter,” he said, all iron, “was a troubled young woman, but she was a –”

An explosion rocked the block before Gwen had the chance to hear what she was. Her spider-sense was the only warning she had to throw herself out of the way, and even then she had to roll with the punches, dazed and discombobulated. Her back met someone’s parked sedan, denting it and setting off the alarm.

“Oh, buddy,” she said, staggering to her feet. She patted the ding she'd left. “Hope your insurance covers flying interdimensional travelers. Oh, my achin’ back…”

She just barely had time to duck as a body was flung her way. It was a woman clad in black, with a big white spider on her chest. Gwen watched as she caught herself on a streetlight, righting herself with the kind of style and grace only a Spider-Woman possessed.

It was just Gwen’s luck that she’d been dropped right in the middle of a fracas.

The Spider-Woman above her had long red hair, dark with rain water. Gwen hoped this other her wasn’t having some kind of Mary Jane envy.

Then the Spider-Woman looked down and froze, going still as a statue.

“You can’t be here,” she said. Her voice was trembling, but not with fear. Gwen could barely hear her over the sirens. “Not after what you did. Gwen, you _can't_ be here.”

Gwen froze as the strange Spider-Woman dropped down to the street, moving towards her. Two things occurred to Gwen: first, that this woman knew who she was. Second, that this woman wasn't her. _In memory of my daughter, Gwen._ Of course this woman wasn't her.

“How did you know --?” she started. The woman in black grabbed her by the arm, easily flipping her over. She stood over her and yanked her mask down.

There was Mary Jane, green eyes alight with fury.

“Gwendolyn Maxine Stacy,” she spat out. “Do you think I wouldn't know you anywhere?”

Gwen had always thought the feeling was mutual. She shoved at Mary Jane, simultaneously getting the upper hand and giving her enough cover to pull her mask back up.

“You can duke it out with me over whatever you think I’ve done later,” she said. “Who are we up against right now?”

She didn’t have to wait long to find out. Electricity crackled in the air and Gwen turned just in time to see a woman appear in a flash of light, power crackling from her fingertips. She was flanked by another woman in dark green armor.

“Is that a _tail_?” Gwen asked.

“Elektra and the Scorpion,” Mary Jane said, pulling herself up to her feet. She immediately dropped into a fighting stance. “Two members of the Tyrannical Trio. I’ve been chasing after them all day after they and their partner, Mysteria, brought the roof down on a whole Stark Bank's worth of innocent people.”

Gwen whistled as she cracked her knuckles. “Alright, Spider-Woman team up. You go low, I'll go high. You line them up, I’ll knock them down.”

She was surprised how good of a team she and Mary Jane made, but it was like they were made to fight together. It took barely any time and not as much property damage as Gwen usually amassed to finish the fight.

Mary Jane didn’t seem happy about that. She turned to Gwen, still perched on top of the Scorpion's unconscious body, and the sightless white eyes of her mask still cut Gwen down to her core.

"Gwen," she said. There were sirens in the distance. They needed to leave. Mary Jane didn't even seem to notice. "How are you here?"

“Emjay,” Gwen said. “You don’t understand. It’s not what you think.”

Her voice cracked. “I don’t understand, Gwen. How can you be here?”

Her shoulders hunched against the rain, Gwen turned to her and pushed her mask up, her hood still covering her head.

“Look at me, Emjay,” she said. “Whatever you think I did – it wasn’t me.”

This was not how Gwen had ever thought she’d unmask to Mary Jane: standing in the wreckage from the windows of a barbeque restaurant called Grimm’s in the pouring rain.

Mary Jane looked at her – really looked at her.

“You’re not my Gwen,” Mary Jane said, backing away.

“Got it in one, Tigress,” Gwen said, pulling her mask back up. Her cheeks were burning the way they did when Mary Jane stared too hard or too long, and not because she thought Gwen was Spider-Woman, but this time there was shame mixed in, too. This wasn't her Mary Jane and this wasn't her Gwen, and her father had to give a press conference in memory, and she didn't know what the other her had done, but Mary Jane did. Whatever it was, she seemed to hate her for it. 

"Oh," Mary Jane said, her shoulders slumped. She recovered in a second, pulling her shoulders back and her chin up. "I still need to know: how are you here?"

Gwen explained. Her home Earth. The dimension hopping. Mary Jane's jaw clenched a little more with every word.

“Spider-Woman!” someone shouted. Both Gwen and Mary Jane’s heads whipped around. There were reporters coming their way, fighting the rain and the rubble and the police line. Mary Jane swore quietly under her breath.

“Come on,” she said, snagging Gwen by her hood. “As long as you're here, you're my responsibility. You’re coming with me.”

 

* * *

 

Mary Jane swung like a bat out of hell, so fast that Gwen had to scramble to catch up with her. Several times she shouted at her to wait up, but it only seemed to make Mary Jane swing harder, faster.

When she finally landed, it was on the rooftop of an apartment building. There was a little garden set up to one side, and a couple of deck chairs lay abandoned in the rain. Gwen noted the skylight; she’d always been jealous of apartments with those. It seemed more convenient for crime fighting than climbing out the window.

Mary Jane easily pried open the skylight.

“After you,” she said, with an elaborate gesture and a mocking little bow.

“Emjay,” Gwen tried, purposefully drawing out the nickname, but Mary Jane just pointed, so finally Gwen jumped.

She landed in a bathroom. She only had a second to look around – fancy hair products in the tiger-striped shower caddy that screamed Mary Jane, but there was a pair of ratty boxers in the laundry basket that no MJ she knew would have been caught dead in – before Mary Jane jumped down, the skylight clattering shut behind her.

The door swung open instantly, and Gwen nearly fell over her own feet. That was Peter standing there – Peter, all grown up, no longer a skinny little boy who was all knees and elbows. His lanky frame had filled out, and the glasses perched on his nose were no longer comically round, but stylish, with black plastic frames. His hair stuck up like he’d been running his hands through it. He practically fell on Mary Jane in relief.

“Oh, thank God,” he said, cupping the back of her head and bringing her in close. “MJ, the _news_ \--”

“Loves nothing better than a super-chick in distress,” Mary Jane said, pushing him off. “You know that. I don’t go down easy.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re just _so_ tough,” he said, rolling his eyes. His gaze caught on Gwen, like he’d only just noticed her. “Who’s your friend? You never bring anybody back here, except...”

He raised his hand in a clawing motion and made a hissing sound.

"Don't be juvenile, Peter," Mary Jane said.

Gwen couldn’t do this. It had been painful meeting other Peters, but they’d all had their own powers. It had made them different. They sometimes felt more like versions of her than versions of her Peter. But this Peter had been waiting up. He didn’t have powers.

He looked so much like him. She couldn’t do this. She could feel it, in her fingertips, down her spine, what she wanted to do: turn. He and Mary Jane were busy with each other and speed was on her side. She could web her way out of that bathroom, break through the skylight, swing away. Get back to her own universe and punch out her feelings until she stopped wanting to scream.

He was staring at her with those big, brown, curious doe eyes. They looked just like his uncle’s.

Gwen reached up and lowered her hood before she tugged off her mask. She raised her head, chin tipped up defiantly, as it fluttered to the floor. _Fake it ‘til you break it, Stacy._

“Gwendy,” Peter said, like he'd been punched.

“Hi, Peter,” she said.

 

* * *

 

The apartment was twice the size of the one Gwen shared with the rest of the band, but just as cluttered with stuff. Peter leaped into action immediately, removing discarded clothes and books from the couch so Gwen had a place to sit. They were chemistry books, she realized. Chemistry books and fashion magazines – Peter and Mary Jane.

There was a drum set in the corner. Gwen's fingers itched.

“Do you live together?” Gwen asked.

“Only way I could afford Manhattan rent is if I'm mooching off her,” Peter shouted from the kitchenette. Gwen could hear the faucet running, and then the slam of the microwave door. “It’s not easy out there for a grad student.”

“And I need someone to scrape me back together sometimes,” Mary Jane said. Peter glanced at her as he came back into the room, concern written all over his face. Mary Jane waved a dismissive hand. “I’m _fine_ , Pete.”

Peter handed Gwen a mug of tea. He couldn’t seem to stop staring at her; Gwen wanted to meet his eyes and avoid his gaze all at the same time.

“You look just like her,” he said.

“She is her,” Mary Jane said. “Just from somewhere else.”

“Your hair is different,” Peter said, ignoring her. “It’s good. It looks good. You're younger, too, than she -- than she would be.”

He looked like he wanted to reach out and touch her cheek. For a second, she wanted that too.

Then she cleared her throat and looked away, up at Mary Jane instead.

“But you’re not together,” Gwen surmised, glancing between them. She’d assumed, when she’d first seen Peter, and their obviously shared bathroom. She remembered her Peter stealing guilty glances at beautiful, vivacious Mary Jane in the hallway, the little frisson of jealousy she’d felt at having his attention taken away from her for even a moment, and by Mary Jane of all people. It had taken her a few more years to realize the appeal of staring at Mary Jane.

Mary Jane and Peter snorted in unison. 

“No,” she said. She looked at Gwen like she should know that already, the kind of look that sent shivers down Gwen's spine.

“Double no,” he said, rolling his eyes. "Been there, done that, got the commemorative t-shirt." Peter inclined his head in Gwen’s direction, putting a hand up to hide his mouth from Mary Jane, as if he was telling Gwen a secret. His voice dropped to a stage whisper. “She said it was like kissing a Muppet.”

“Nobody told you to grow that mustache,” Mary Jane said. She slammed something down on his desk, hard enough to rattle it. “Fix that, would you? The trigger's a little wonky and I need to get back to the party. Mysteria's still out there with all that money.”

“The party? Where’s the party?” Gwen asked, watching as Mary Jane walked towards the door, leaving pieces of her Spider-Woman uniform scattered in her wake. Gwen’s eyes caught on several things: the choppy fall of her long red hair, frizzy now that it was starting to dry, the straps of her black sports bra, the sway of her hips.

The little heart tattooed on her hip with Gwen’s name inside it. She felt like she’d been punched in the face by the Bodega Bandit’s competent cousin.

She looked up to find Peter was watching her and her face went hot. He just smiled and shrugged a shoulder.

“Why, what do you call a little girl on Tyrannical Trio action?” he asked, sighing. The smile disappeared and he took off his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. “I call it a nightmare. She calls it a party.”

Gwen settled on the edge of his desk, leaning in close to watch him work. She’d watched those long, clever fingers roll dice and wield pencils with deadly accuracy, but her Peter’s hands had been soft. This Peter had calluses built up, bright bandaids wrapped around his fingers like rings.

He looked up and caught her staring. Where her Peter would have looked away, this one grinned.

“I’m the tech support,” he said. “We were just kids when I found out – her aunt lived next door to mine and one night I'm trying to find Jupiter with the telescope I got for Hannukah, and instead what I find is my neighbor crawling out her bedroom window. I confronted her. I wanted so badly to be part of the action, you know? Beautiful girl next door can lift a truck over her head – it was like a movie.” He laughed. “That the beautiful girl next door would much rather make out with my hot cousin Amanda than me, that part was a little hard for sixteen-year-old me.”

“To be fair, I’ve seen your cousin Amanda,” Gwen said. It had been years since the Reilly cousins had flocked to the Parker house in Queens for a summer cookout -- the same number of years since Peter had died -- but she still remembered the taste of Ben Parker’s brisket and the sun glinting off of Amanda Reilly’s stunning smile.

“Sure,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. “Mary Jane could do whatever a spider can but _I_ had a chemistry set and way too much time on my hands.”

“Janet Van Dyne made mine,” Gwen said, rolling up her glove for Peter to see.

“Huh,” he said, taking her hand in his own. He’d been such a skinny kid; it was a shock every time she met a grown up version of him how small she felt against him. “Nice work. I think the one on this side of the fence makes jeans or something. Mary Jane would know.”

“She find much time to shop between showings of Dances With Supervillains?” Gwen asked, pulling her hand away from Peter’s. The party – of course Mary Jane would see Spider-Woman that way. Everything was always a ball for Mary Jane, otherwise what was the point of it?

Then Gwen remembered how she felt when everything was going right for a change.

She guessed “party” wasn’t a bad word for it.

“Mary Jane’s angry,” Peter said, tinkering around with the webshooter she’d left him. “I get that. I used to be pretty angry, too.”

“What happened?” Gwen asked, swinging her legs idly as she watched him work.

He tilted his head to the side and her gaze fell on a patch of grey-green scales, just beneath his ear. Gwen’s blood ran cold. She remembered her own Peter, still covered in scales when he’d told her why he’d done it. _I wanted to be like you._

“I made a mistake,” this Peter said. “And I paid the price for that. We weren’t all meant to be superheroes.”

“But you’re here now,” Gwen said, grabbing his elbow. She did it too hard, if his wince was any indication. She eased up, but didn’t let go. She couldn’t stop looking at the scales. “You’re okay?”

“Easy there, cowgirl. I’m fine. Mary Jane saw to that. I think it’s because she was so angry, actually,” he said. “It felt like it sucked it all out of me. Like her feelings were so much bigger than mine. There wasn’t enough room left for me to be angry, ‘cause she took it all with her.”

He said it like it had saved him. Gwen swallowed hard, refusing to let her eyes prickle.

“So I joined a gym. Blew too much money on a motorcycle. Kissed a girl just because. Learned how to listen to people – what they were actually saying, not just what I thought they were.” He grinned, gesturing to the drums. “And I found music.”

“You play?” she asked, her own fingers itching.

“I can’t punch a super creep in the face worth a damn, but when Mary Jane’s out too late and I get that urge, I wail on the drums for a while,” he said, grinning. “More noise complaints, but no broken bones. I figure it works out.”

Gwen remembered feeling that way, a long time ago, banished by her father to the garage because of the racket. Then she’d been bitten, and discovered the impact of her fist against some superpowered yahoo’s jaw. She curled her fingers towards her palm.

“Mary Jane’s my best friend,” Peter said. “She can go out there and tangle with octopus women and super-sized scorpions and the Naked Cowboy, I don’t care, because I’m staying right here. She can’t make me leave. I mean,” he broke off with a laugh, “she actually could, you know, pick me up and toss me out the window. I’m pretty sure she’s wanted to do it, too. But I’d come back, because she needs me. Because she’s my best friend and I love her.”

Gwen swallowed hard. Peter’s gaze was so intense, so like her Peter’s and yet – not. There was something steady about him, something steely. This Peter might have bent, but he hadn't snapped.

“Just like I loved our Gwendy,” he said.

How many times had Gwen run out on her friends, her bandmates, her dad? And when she’d come home, there they’d been. Waiting, like this Peter. Her eyes burned at the corners.

This strange, settled Peter held very still when she cupped a hand to his stubble-rough cheek and pressed her lips to his. He seemed to get that it wasn’t about him, not really. It was about kissing the ghost of who her Peter could have grown up to be, and saying goodbye to him all over again.

“Well?” he asked when she pulled back. “How was it?”

“Like kissing a Muppet,” she said.

“Oh, I’m slain!” he said, leaning back dramatically in his chair, one hand thrown over his eyes, with the kind of drama her Peter regularly burst out with during particularly emotional D&D games. It made her smile to see it again, even if it hurt. “Eviscerated! You’ve cut me deep! For this, I shaved off that mustache.”

“Peter,” Mary Jane said. She was standing in the doorway, wearing a clean and dry spider-suit. She hadn’t pulled up the mask yet. She looked annoyed. Had she seen the kiss, Gwen wondered, first anxious, and then angry at herself for being anxious. It didn’t matter if Mary Jane had seen the kiss. It wasn’t about her. “My webshooter.”

“My lady. Done,” Peter said, holding it out. “Shiny and new. You’re not going back out already, are you? It's pouring cats and dogs out there.”

“What choice do I have?” she asked, strapping the webshooter to her wrist.

“A hell of a lot more than you’d like to admit,” he muttered under his breath. Mary Jane heard, if the stiffening of her shoulders was anything to go by, but she didn't reply.

“Well, Gwen 2.0?” Mary Jane called out over her shoulder. “Are you coming or not?”

Gwen glanced at Peter, hesitating. Part of her didn’t want to leave him. A bigger part of her did.

“Go,” Peter told her. He smiled ruefully as he adjusted his glasses. “Enjoy the party.”

 

* * *

 

It was a drag ‘em down, knock ‘em out whirlwind of a fight when they finally found Mysteria. She'd been hiding out down by the docks, waiting to board a boat, apparently all too willing to become a solo act abroad. Mary Jane hit harder than Gwen had expected her to, but then she remembered Peter’s voice: _“Mary Jane’s angry.”_

She fought like it.

Mary Jane was so beautiful in motion, all her red hair whipping around. She had the same presence in a fight that she had on stage, like she was bigger than this space. Gwen couldn’t help but stare; spider-sense saved her from a few near misses and flying fists.

It was over almost before it began. Mysteria’s illusions were no match against two Spider-Women, and she knew it. One moment she was there, fishbowl and all, and then the next she was gone in a puff of smoke.

Mary Jane swore. She tore the warehouse door from its hinges, but there was no sign of Mysteria anywhere.

“Hey, leave it,” Gwen said, touching her shoulder. “She left the money. You won. It’s all okay.”

“It’s not okay!” Mary Jane said, shrugging her off. She breathed in deep. “It wasn't about the money. I’m sick of people getting away from me.”

Gwen was pretty sure she didn’t mean just Mysteria. She curled her own hands into fists, wishing for the millionth time since the first moment she’d laid eyes on Mary Jane Watson that she understood her.

Mary Jane, who’d gotten in front of Frank Castle to defend her. Mary Jane, who always let her back into the band. Mary Jane, who knew she was Spider-Woman and hadn't run screaming to the press.

Gwen wondered why they always had to clash. Sometimes it felt like they were trying to dance, but they couldn't stop tripping over each other's feet.

Then Mary Jane sighed. Gwen nearly jumped at the brush of her fingers against her own.

“Come on, golden girl,” she said. “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee for the long road.”

Despite her offer of a cup of coffee, Mary Jane seemed aimless, leaping across rooftops and crawling over walls. Gwen just followed after her, trying to stay on her trail.

“How’d you get your powers?” Mary Jane asked, shouting over the wind.

“Genetically engineered spider,” Gwen said. “It’s a long story. You?”

“Field trip to your dad’s lab.” Mary Jane flipped and spun, catching herself on a lamppost. Gwen didn’t know why she was surprised that she was a showboat with her powers. Mary Jane had always been about bigger, brighter, better, putting on the best damn show she could. “Pharmaceutical trial gone wrong. Same difference.”

“Not my dad,” Gwen said. “Different Gwen, different George. My dad used to be a cop.”

Mary Jane’s swing faltered. She dropped onto a fire escape a little too hard; the iron creaked ominously underneath her.

“What?” Gwen asked, landing nimbly on the railing. She dropped into a crouch. “Got a police procedural bee in your bonnet?”

Then she remembered: _“Your daughter killed the chief of police.”_

Gwen swallowed hard. “Emjay? What did the other me do?”

Mary Jane’s head went down. Her hands curled into fists.

A knocking sound snapped both their heads to the side. There were two little kids on the other side of the window, staring at them in wide-eyed awe.

Instantly, Mary Jane was a whole other person. The tension melted from her shoulders as she pasted on a big grin, waving with both hands. For the next couple of minutes, Gwen crouched on the railing and watched her play the perfect mix of Disney princess and class clown, pulling faces and doing a couple basic acrobatic tricks to make the kids laugh.

They couldn’t take their eyes off her, and neither could Gwen.

Finally, Mary Jane waved a jubilant goodbye to the kids and exited with flair. Gwen followed after her, creeping quiet as a spider down the brick wall. She couldn't see Mary Jane anywhere below.

“Emjay?” she called softly.

Part of the brickwork shifted as Mary Jane moved, reappearing before Gwen’s eyes. _Oh,_ she thought. She had camouflage powers, the way that Miles did. Gwen hadn’t realized. 

“I’ll tell you everything, I promise,” Mary Jane said. “But not here.”

 

* * *

 

They were halfway to the bridge before Gwen realized where they were going. Instinctively, she tried to change direction.

“Isn’t there anywhere else we can go, red?” she asked. “Like, I don’t know, a nice little coffee shop somewhere? Know anywhere that sells a mean corn dog?”

Mary Jane just climbed, silent, to the top of the bridge. After one hesitant moment, Gwen followed. She found Mary Jane just sitting there, staring out over the water. Her back was turned to Gwen.

“What is it with Gwens and bridges?” Gwen joked, trying to break the silence and put herself at ease. She succeeded at neither. "I guess this is where it happened, huh? Typical."

“Not everything is about you, Goldilocks,” Mary Jane said. The air was cold this high up, and the wind whipped her wild red hair into a fiery cloud. She looked at once righteous and very sad. “This was where Harry fell.”

“Harry…?” Gwen said, hoping against hope that it was some other Harry. There were millions of Harrys in the world. It didn’t always have to be hers.

“Harry’s dad was a cop,” Mary Jane said. “Chief of police, actually. But he was crooked. Worse than crooked. There was something evil in him.” She glanced at Gwen. "I think my you always saw that better than most. God, she hated him, even before we really knew."

 _Your daughter killed the chief of police._ That was what someone in the crowd had angrily hurled at her father.

Her knees felt like they might give out as she collapsed next to Mary Jane. "Norman?"

“They were old money, you know? Real distinguished. The Osborn dynasty,” Mary Jane said. “A double life in a Halloween store mask and poor dead Harry's face splashed all over the news. Some legacy Norman left behind.”

“What happened?” Gwen asked, grabbing Mary Jane’s shoulder. “Emjay, please, I need to know.”

“It sounds so weird when you say it like that,” Mary Jane said, wrinkling her nose. She yanked down her mask, blinking furiously at the skyline. “Harry was – Harry was a _believer_. He believed in all of us, in me and you and Peter. He knew what his father was doing and he wanted to bring it to light.” She closed her eyes. “I tried to help him. From the shadows, mostly. I didn't want to cast suspicion on him. It didn’t matter. Norman found out.”

Gwen remembered Harry’s dad, how cold he’d seemed. How Harry got tense whenever he was around -- but she'd never thought he'd hurt him.

“He threw Harry from the top of this bridge,” Mary Jane said. She balled one hand into a fist and slammed it down, leaving a dent. “His own _son_ , Gwen. He did it and he framed me. Two birds with one stone – Harry silenced and me with a million dollar bounty on my head.”

Gwen didn’t want to know, but she had to ask. “What did I – what did she do?”

“I didn’t know,” Mary Jane said, shoulders slumped. All her righteous fury was gone in an instant. “You have to believe me, I didn’t know. I would have stopped her if I had. She knew I hadn't done it. She confronted me about it. We fought." She took a deep breath. "She broke into her father’s lab in the middle of the night and injected herself with the spider venom.”

“She gave herself powers,” Gwen said.

“She gave herself powers,” Mary Jane confirmed. “My powers. And then she went after Norman Osborn with them, because he took Harry away from us.”

“He killed her,” Gwen said, staring out over the water. She could almost feel his phantom fingers around her neck.

“She got him first,” Mary Jane said. “But his glider was remote controlled. He managed to activate it at the last second.”

She didn’t say anything more. She didn’t have to; Gwen remembered the sharp blades of Harry’s glider.

“Not that it mattered,” Mary Jane said. “His injuries were too severe, she'd beat him that bad. He didn’t even make it to the hospital. The Osborn legacy, all gone.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that, Peter and I were alone.”

“And Peter?” Gwen asked, remembering the grey-green line of scales under his ear, the wry twist of his smile. “He said he made a mistake.”

“That was later,” Mary Jane said. “His old mentor, Dr. Carla Connors, she told him she could give him power, and he believed in her. We were both a mess for a while after you. Her. What’s it like where you’re from?” Before Gwen could answer – before Gwen could decide how she wanted to answer, she snorted and added, “Bet you got it all figured out, right? You always thought you did.”

Gwen didn’t mean to say it, but two thoughts hit her at once: the image of this world’s Peter, with his crooked glasses and his clever hands and the ease with which he carried himself, open and honest and alive, and the thought of Gwen’s own Mary Jane, screaming her heart out on stage. _You gotta face it, face it, face it, Tiger._

“Peter’s dead,” she said. Mary Jane’s head whipped around, face gone white, so Gwen rushed to clarify. “My Peter. He’s dead. I play drums in a band named after you and sleep on a couch in our crappy apartment and Harry’s turned himself into a monster and Peter is dead because he wanted to be me.”

She took a moment to just breathe, big gulps of air, her face turned away from Mary Jane. She’d seen the man Peter had the potential to be, building webshooters in Mary Jane’s apartment, all grown up and so smart, saying that Mary Jane had saved him.

She wondered what would have happened if it had been her Mary Jane that was bit by the spider. If any of them could've stood a chance.

“Look at us,” Mary Jane said after a long moment. “We’re like a puzzle that got all shook up and put back together wrong. You think there’s any version of this story with a happily ever after?”  
  
Gwen stared out over the water, remembering a different bridge, a different girl. She’d stood in this same spot in that other universe, but it had been different, then. She'd been different.   
  
She stood, spread her arms, and leaped.

Mary Jane’s shout registered as a distant second to the feeling of falling.

Her webline caught on the bridge. She stopped with a jolt and hung there. Her shoulder ached. That was the first thing she registered: that her shoulder ached.  
Falling didn’t feel anything like she’d thought it would. Everything that she thought it might have freed in her was still all jumbled up in her chest and stuck in her throat.

A rush of red and black motion almost made her let go of her line. Mary Jane had jumped after her.

“Gwen! What the hell were you thinking?” she demanded, hanging parallel to Gwen. “Were you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Maybe a little bit,” Gwen said.

“Unbelievable!” Mary Jane said. She breathed out. “God, you always were a drama queen.”

“That’s the pot calling the kettle a pot!” Gwen said. The corners of her lips started to twitch as she dangled there, aching shoulder and all. She didn’t mean to start to laugh, but she did, her head thrown back.

Mary Jane swung out as if to hit her, but caught her instead, letting go of her webline to wrap her arms around Gwen. It took Gwen’s breath away that she trusted her to hold her up above the water like this, and then she was laughing even harder, and then she was crying and so was Mary Jane.

Then they were just two girls, dangling at the end of a spider’s web.

“I don’t know whether I want to kiss you or hit you,” Mary Jane confessed, burying her face in Gwen’s shoulder.

“So what else is new?” Gwen asked, wrapping her free arm around Mary Jane’s back. They just hung there, two Spider-Women buffeted by the breeze, swaying gently back and forth. It was a long moment before Mary Jane pulled away.

“Can we get down now?” Mary Jane asked.

 

* * *

 

Gwen swung them to a rooftop far away from the bridge, up so high they wouldn’t be disturbed by anything more than a couple of pigeons. Mary Jane seemed content to be a passenger on the ride, her arms looped securely around Gwen's neck. Every so often she'd offer a bit of local commentary -- "I fought Rhinocera over there, by Drake's Ice Cream Shop. Well, actually, I knocked her into it. Hey, do you have a Rhinocera?" "Lady, I really hope I don't." -- but for the most part she was quiet.

There was a billboard for perfume far below them with Mary Jane’s face splashed across it.

“You’re a model?” Gwen asked.

Mary Jane shrugged. “It pays the bills. Peter says it’s ridiculous when one good hit could take me out of the business, but I heal fast. I wanted to be an actress, but you know what this masked life is like – you never have enough time for everything you want to do.”

Gwen swallowed hard, looking away from the billboard.

“My you’s in a band,” she said. "The Mary Janes."

“You said. I do like to sing in the shower,” Mary Jane said. "And I always did want my name in lights. Peter's in a band, too."

"I saw the drums," Gwen said.

"Yeah, he's in it with his old friend from high school and his ex-girlfriend, Betty," she said. "They're _terrible_."

Gwen felt her come up behind her. She turned, removing her hood and pulling off her mask as she did.

Mary Jane’s hands came to rest on her waist. Her eyes searched her face.

“Hi, Gwen,” she said.

Gently, Gwen rested her forehead against Mary Jane’s.

“Were you and her…?” she asked, and then found she couldn’t actually bring herself to say it.

“No,” Mary Jane said. She flexed her fingers before she let go, taking a step back. “Yes. Maybe. It was always so complicated. We’d fall into bed and then the next week it would all be totally different.” She shrugged. “I loved her and she loved me. I always thought it would be her and Peter at the altar in the end, though.”

Gwen tried to imagine it: her in a wedding dress -- what, with the costume underneath? -- and Peter in a tux, tugging nervously at the collar. Her dad walking her down the aisle. May crying in the front pew. Something itched unpleasant in her chest.

That was never going to be her life.

“It all fell apart after Harry died. She was so angry, at Norman, at him, at me,” Mary Jane said, her voice shaking as she turned away. “And she was – it was how she was, sometimes. She’d hurl insults at me and I’d give as good as I got, but it wasn’t – it wasn’t like any other day. I missed Harry too much. She told me to get out – she shouted it at me. Told me she wouldn’t want to keep me from the party. And I left the room. I let that door shut behind me.” She balled her hands into fists and tilted her head back towards the sky, her eyes screwed tight. “I left her _alone_.”

Before Gwen could really register it, there were tears rolling down Mary Jane’s face.

“I _left_ her,” she said.

Gwen moved before she really registered it. One second she was standing there watching Mary Jane – not _her_ Mary Jane, but still Mary Jane – cry and the next she’d thrown her arms around her. This Mary Jane was taller than her, too, just like hers was, and Gwen had to rock up her toes to press Mary Jane’s face against her shoulder.

She never could stand seeing her cry.

Gwen buried her fingers deep in Mary Jane’s red hair and held on for dear life. She imagined it, but backwards – Mary Jane, hurling insults and accusations, because she was hurting, because she didn’t understand, and Gwen, not trying to talk it out. Not trying to make her feel better. Not trying to understand.

She pictured herself on the wrong side of that door.

It was what she had done when she’d left the band.

“It’s okay,” she told Mary Jane, rubbing slow circles on her back even as she squeezed her own eyes shut. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. The other me – would she say it was your fault?”

Mary Jane sniffed. “She wouldn’t mean it.”

“Okay,” Gwen said. “There you have it, from the horse’s mouth: it’s not your fault.”

“I should have webbed her up in a cocoon that night,” Mary Jane said.

“And I should have saved Peter,” Gwen said. “But that’s why we do this, right? To make up for it. Back where I’m from, I’m kind of known for giving speeches.” She tugged lightly on a lock of Mary Jane’s hair. “Mind if I indulge myself a little?”

“Spare me,” Mary Jane groaned, but then she turned her face a little more into Gwen’s neck, so when she spoke next her lips brushed against her throat. “Okay, let me hear it.”

“My Mary Jane, she drives me crazy,” she confessed. “She’s so loud, and I’m not just talking lung capacity, though she's got that in spades. It’s like when she’s in the room – that’s it. There’s no room for anyone else. You can't look at anyone but her. Sometimes she makes me feel so small, but a lot of times, she makes me feel like I could do anything. And she always, always gives me another chance. I would never, ever want her to blame herself. I know I’m not your and Peter’s Gwendy,” she said, cradling Mary Jane’s face between her palms. She tried her very best to smile at her, and she didn’t even think she did half-bad. “But I’m a Gwen, right?”

It wasn’t a real kiss, just the lightest brush of their lips, but then this wasn’t Gwen’s Mary Jane and she wasn’t this Mary Jane’s Gwen.

Gwen wanted her anyway.

“Oh,” Mary Jane sighed. Their lips met again, slow, tentative. Mary Jane’s lipstick was sticky-sweet and smelled of cherries. “Oh, I can’t.”

“I know,” Gwen said. “I know I’m not her –”

“I have a girlfriend,” Mary Jane blurted out. “Maybe you know her back in your world? Her name’s Felicia Hardy.”

“Are you serious?” Gwen asked, pulling back. “Felicia Hardy, as in _Le Chat Noir_ Felicia Hardy?”

“Uh, mine doesn’t do the French,” Mary Jane said. Gwen clapped her hand over her mouth, turning to stifle her laughter at the thought of her Mary Jane being able to get within kissing distance of Felicia Hardy without the fur flying. “Why? What’s so funny? Gwen?”

“Nothing,” she said, still snickering as she settled her head down on Mary Jane’s shoulder. “It’s just a funny world, that’s all.”

 

* * *

 

Mary Jane and Peter saw her off.

“Take care, kiddo,” Peter said, hugging her tight. She threw as much of her strength as she dared into hugging him back and he staggered back, laughing.

He’d always had a good laugh.

Gwen turned to Mary Jane and stuck out her hand.

“Don’t be stupid,” Mary Jane said, throwing her arms around her. “Listen to your MJ when you get back, okay? I’m smarter than you think I am.”

“I don’t think you know,” Gwen whispered in her ear, “just how smart I think you are.”

Peter, whistling, had turned his back.

“You can look now,” Mary Jane said, stepping back to stand with him.

“Just trying to give you a little privacy,” he said, reaching down to squeeze her hand. He waved with his free hand, smiling the kind of easy smile Gwen thought she’d never see on a Peter Parker’s face. “Bye, Gwendy.”

“Bye, Pete,” she said. “Bye, Spider-Woman.”

“See you around, Spider-Woman,” said Mary Jane.

Gwen waved to them for as long as the portal was open, which was a patented Gwen Stacy mistake.

She landed flat on her back in the middle of a playground, the wind knocked out of her. She took a moment to enjoy it, lying flat on her back in her own mixed up, crazy world, surrounded by shrieking children and nannies threatening to call the cops.

Then her phone started blowing up: missed texts, voicemails, eight photos of Betty’s cat, a whole lot of profanity.

Gwen was late for a gig again.

 

* * *

 

She didn’t make in time. She knew she wouldn’t. She still tried – she really did this time, swinging so fast that a tight turn nearly tore her arm from the socket. She landed in the alley behind the club and changed behind the dumpster, even though she knew she was too late. They’d gone on without her.

What other choice had she left them? What other choice had she ever left them, lost in her own anger, her own grief? Her own need to be something _more_ than them? Now, the unfairness of it was laid out clean in front of her, bared underneath the club’s neon lights. She wasn’t more. She was exactly the same. She loved her stupid, beautiful friends and she wanted to be up there with them.

They were already halfway through their set when she made it in. Gwen had known she wouldn’t make it in time, but it still hurt to know there was a replacement on drums. But then, what other choice had she given them?

What choice had she given Mary Jane?

Mary Jane belonged up on that stage. Let Gwen shoulder the weight of the world. Let her carry all the anger and all the other ugly things. She’d do it, just so Mary Jane could stand up there and scream her heart out.

Gwen broke in through the club’s bathroom window and shut herself in a stall to shed her costume, stuffing it haphazardly into her bag. She could hear Mary Jane’s muffled voice even from here, and recognized the song. It was _Utterly Mad_ , their newest, and Gwen and Glory had stayed up all night with her working on it.

The title had nothing to do with the lyrics, but it was what Glory had declared Mary Jane at three in the morning, and it had somehow stuck.

Gwen hummed along to the chorus as she zipped up her bag and stumbled out into the club. Instantly she was surrounded by dancing bodies, but then Mary Jane could always put on a show. Gwen pushed herself forward, but not to the very front. She didn't want them to see her just yet.

“Hey,” a guy said, leaning into her space. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

“Me?” said Gwen, throwing her arms up with great abandon. “I’m with the band!”

An hour and Glory and Mary Jane hamming it up through two encores later, Gwen slipped backstage after the show. She’d been hoping to sneak up on Mary Jane in her dressing room. To surprise her. Instead, she nearly jumped out of her skin at a voice from behind her.

“Hey, stranger. Long time, no see.”

Mary Jane was leaning up against the wall, her damp red hair in her face and her shirt sweat-stuck to her skin. It was a shock to see her again after the other Mary Jane, the Spider-Woman one. Her Mary Jane seemed smaller and, all of a sudden, far more real. Her Mary Jane, who bought Taylor Swift on vinyl and spent six whole hours collapsed on top of Gwen, once, refusing to get up so Gwen could reach the remote and put on anything else but Dateline with Trish Tilby, and who could shout so high and loud she made Gwen’s ears ring. Her Mary Jane, with the stage presence of a hurricane.

Before Gwen even knew it, she was smiling.

“What are you looking at?” Mary Jane snorted, crossing her arms.

“You,” Gwen said.

“Yeah?” Mary Jane asked even as she immediately started to preen, head tilted to the side so her hair cascaded over one shoulder, that long neck on display. She tilted her chin up and canted her hip. “What for, O’ Golden Gwen-doe-lyne?”

Gwen laughed, even though she knew it would just annoy Mary Jane even more. She couldn’t help it.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” she said, holding out her hand. “Let me walk you home?”

Mary Jane didn’t look impressed. “We live in the same apartment, weirdo.”

Gwen took a step forward; Mary Jane stayed where she was. She smelled like sweat over her cheap sugar sweet perfume. Her elbows were smooth under Gwen’s hands when she wrapped her fingers around Mary Jane’s arms, leaning forward.

Mary Jane met her halfway. The kiss was brief, but it lit Gwen up inside from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, tingling in her fingertips. It felt like she’d been bitten all over again.

“I’m sorry,” Gwen said, resting her forehead against Mary Jane’s.

“For what?” Mary Jane asked.

“For missing the show,” Gwen said.

Mary Jane smiled. “And?”

“For keeping secrets,” Gwen said.

“And?” Mary Jane said, knocking her nose against Gwen’s.

“For not being able to tell you about the 'and' yet,” Gwen said.

“Okay,” Mary Jane said, sliding one hand through the back of Gwen’s mask-mussed hair. “ _And_?”

“Not for the kiss,” Gwen said.

“See, now that’s what I wanted to hear,” Mary Jane said. She tangled her fingers in Gwen’s hair and kissed her again. Her lips were chapped and they tasted like the wax of her lipstick, but Gwen wouldn’t have had it any other way than this: kissing her Mary Jane under the neon lights.

The air was cold and crisp when they ducked out of the club, huddled together. Gwen had forgotten her jacket in her rush to change out of her costume, so Mary Jane gave her hers instead. Any other night, Gwen would have refused, but she could still feel Mary Jane’s smile.

“So,” Mary Jane said, locked arm in arm with Gwen as they made their way towards the subway. “Another long night of saving the world, Supergirl?”

Gwen put her head down against Mary Jane’s shoulder. “Something like that.”


End file.
